Star transfer guard Koby Brea is taking a recruiting visit to Kentucky basketball

Star college basketball transfer Koby Brea is taking a recruiting visit to Mark Pope and the Kentucky basketball program Tuesday.

Brea, a 6-foot-6, 205-pound guard, is one of the most coveted players in the NCAA transfer portal. He played the last four seasons at Dayton and is looking for a new school for his fifth and final season of college eligibility.

He averaged 11.1 points and 3.8 rebounds last season for the Flyers. Dayton was a 7 seed in the 2024 NCAA Tournament and reached the round of 32.

Brea was seen with members of the Kentucky basketball coaching staff at Fayette County’s Blue Grass Airport on Monday night when he arrived for his visit.

A prolific distance shooter, Brea made 100 3-pointers over 33 games for Dayton last season. He made 49.8% of his 3-point attempts, which put him third in the country in 3-point shooting percentage, according to KenPom.

Other standout offensive statistics for Brea include a 71.5% effective field goal percentage (second in the nation last season) and a 72.2% true shooting percentage (also second in the nation last season). He attempted more than six 3-pointers per game.

This shooting prowess would marry well with Pope’s offensive style of play. The former BYU and Utah Valley head coach is known for making good use of analytics with his teams’ shot diets: Last season, BYU finished second nationally with 32 long-range attempts per game and the Cougars were 14th in the nation in offensive efficiency, per KenPom.

According to college basketball statistician Evan Miyakawa, Brea is ranked as the No. 79 overall transfer portal player, as of Monday evening.

Brea (who was unranked as a high school recruit in the 2020 recruiting class) has already released a list of his final five schools out of the transfer portal: Kentucky made the cut, along with Duke, Kansas, North Carolina and UConn.

Originally, Brea only planned to take recruiting visits to Duke and UConn. The UConn visit happened last weekend. The Duke visit, which had been scheduled for this week, has reportedly been canceled.

On Monday night, CBS Sports writer Matt Norlander reported UConn is no longer recruiting Brea after landing former Saint Mary’s guard Aidan Mahaney, who visited Kentucky last week.

This puts Kentucky in the driver’s seat to potentially land Brea.

The 21-year-old player from New York City has already had a video call with Pope, who was officially announced as UK’s new head coach on April 12. Brea entered the transfer portal on April 15.

Kentucky’s roster for next season, which will be Pope’s first as the Wildcats’ coach, already includes six players, including four transfer portal pickups.

These players are first-year guards Collin Chandler and Travis Perry, third-year guard Otega Oweh (Oklahoma), fifth-year guard Lamont Butler (San Diego State) and fifth-year forwards Amari Williams (Drexel) and Andrew Carr (Delaware and Wake Forest).

Former Utah State forward Great Osobor began a recruiting visit to Kentucky earlier this week.

Pope essentially has a blank slate from which to construct his first Kentucky basketball roster: All 10 of the underclassmen from the Wildcats’ 2023-24 team have already either declared for the NBA draft or entered the transfer portal.

Only one recruit from Kentucky’s original 2024 recruiting class, constructed by former head coach John Calipari, will play for Pope at UK. That’s Travis Perry, an in-state guard and the all-time leading scorer in Kentucky high school boys basketball history.

Three of those recruits — Boogie Fland, Karter Knox and Billy Richmond — have committed to play for Calipari at his new school, Arkansas.

On Monday afternoon, another of these recruits, Jayden Quaintance, announced he would be going to Arizona State.

On Monday night, the final remaining recruit from this group, Somto Cyril, committed to Georgia.

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